


Ending without Epilogue

by iulia_linnea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-10
Updated: 2012-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 09:15:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iulia_linnea/pseuds/iulia_linnea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry knows what he has to do, even if he doesn't quite know why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ending without Epilogue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sachael](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=sachael).



> Written on 10 March 2008 in response to [sachael](http://sachael.livejournal.com/profile)'s prompt of _Harry/Severus, of course. I'd love to see a heartbroken Harry as he suddenly realizes why no portrait of Snape has appeared in the Headmaster's office. He knows what he has to do..._

Harry, lying in his dormitory bed, suddenly sat straight up and said, "No portrait!" Snape's portrait hadn't been hanging in the Headmaster's office. _Perhaps I just missed it. I was tired_ , he thought, dressing and returning there.

"Ah, I knew you'd be back," Dumbledore's portrait told him, as Harry looked around.

"He isn't dead, is he?"

"Professor Snape wasn't one to give up so easily, I think."

Harry frowned. "That's not an answer, sir."

"Isn't it?"

"Do you know where he is?"

"You, too, aren't one to let anything go—but why, Harry?" Dumbledore asked.

"I . . . I don't know," he admitted, flushing.

Dumbledore chuckled. "No one will have thought to check Spinner's End, I fear, not with the celebrations taking up their attention. 

"That's why!" Harry exclaimed, suddenly furious with everyone, but with himself, especially. "He shouldn't be forgotten. He's . . . ."

Unable to complete his thought, Harry left to office. He knew what he had to do.

~*~

"Are you safe to Apparate, dear boy?" Albus asked, turning his attention to the wizard standing in the shadows.

"Yes, but—"

"Come now, Severus. How often do such chances as this occur? You've . . . unfinished business with Harry, I believe."

"I told you, it's Li—"

"You told me a great many things that you _wanted_ to believe, and your restraint with regard to Harry has been admirable, but now—"

~*~

Most of the portraits tittered as Snape practically raced from the office, all but Phineas.

"Disgusting! How could you encourage—"

"Do shut up, Phineas," Albus replied, smiling through thoughts of love.

~*~

Sometime later, Harry and Severus found themselves standing in Spinner's End's kitchen, staring at each other. They never did _speak_ together that night, but, in the morning, they came to agree that not all stories required expected and tidy epilogues.


End file.
